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Christian Whitehead, one of the developers of Sonic Mania, has co-founded a new studio known as Evening Star based in Los Angeles California. The developer is famous for his work on numerous Sonic projects, including phone ports of the popular Genesis titles as well the most recent official entry into the series with Sonic Mania Plus. It is well known that he got his start in developing officially for Sega when his fan-game Retro Sonic got a lot of online attention, even going so far as to be the base for the retro engine that would power retro-themed video games.

Although Evening Star is going to be based out of LA, the studio will have members from all around the world and will allow each of the several founders to lead their own projects. The studio claimed they would be focusing on reviving old techniques which the games industry at large had long-since forgotten about in a recent interview.

“Every member pursues a goal to make their own great games. By encouraging strong technical foundations in every discipline, members are given a voice and latitude to impact games in unique ways. By reinvigorating gaming history’s more cunning techniques, the team boldly explores directions long since left behind.”

The new studio also said that they would aim to create fun and interesting games that would stand the test of time. In preparation for game development, Whitehead has been made Creative Director and Lead Engine Architect, and has even renamed the retro engine as the ‘Star Engine’.

Quick Take

I for one am super excited by this announcement. Whitehead has been a huge driving force in the retro community for years, and his ports have been some of the best that any game has ever received. With his own engine and having proved himself with Sonic Mania, it’s only a matter of time before we get something truly stunning from Evening Star.

Are you excited by Christian Whitehead creating a creative team? What sort of games are you hoping to see out of the group in the near future? Let us know in the comments down below

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I'm Will and I'm a UK-based writer who went to film school before realizing writing was more fun than film-making. I've written for a number of gaming sites over the past few years of my writing career, including Cliqist, Gaming Respawn, and TechRaptor. I also produce videos for my own channel (Mupple) as well as Cliqists popular YouTube channel. I've covered industry events such as EGX and am hoping to break into narrative game writing in the future.